The last few weeks of Winter Quarter were extremely painful at UC San
Diego. Included were the racially-charged events leading to the student
protests and expressions of concern by students, faculty, and staff for
a safe learning environment and hate-free campus. Meetings were held
between the UC San Diego administration and the Black Student Union
leadership with Senate participation to articulate a set of common goals
to achieve real change on campushttp://battlehate.ucsd.edu/whatwearedoing.php

These events have led to an enormous amount of negative publicity for UC
San Diego. On 20 March, a community forum organized by the California
Legislature "Addressing Intolerance in Higher Education" was held on
campus. Subsequently, at its 24 March meeting, the UC Board of Regents
held an extended public comment period and discussion on recent
incidents of intolerance on University of California campuses. Archive
video of the Regents meeting is availablehttp://www.ustream.tv/regentsmeeting - the three files of interest are
those labeled as starting at 10:30 a.m. (starts ~4 min into the file),
11:30 a.m., and 11:59 a.m. UC San Diego will be scrutinized for some
time to come by our local community, the legislature, and UCOP.

These events also underscore a critical need for UC San Diego to take
visible, significant steps (which entails the commitment of resources)
to improve the campus climate for underrepresented minorities. These
will begin with the common goals summarized in the 24 March article "UC
San Diego Updates Campus Climate Goals and Accountability Efforts"
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/general/03-24CampusClimate.asp.
Certainly, a vast majority of students, faculty, and staff have not
knowingly contributed to a negative campus climate. However, as a
campus community, we actively need to embrace diversity and foster
cultural awareness at every opportunity. We must insist on a safe,
respectful learning and work environment on campus for everyone. As
faculty, we set the tone by the character of our interaction with our
peers, staff, and students. On a daily basis, we can and must
demonstrate an inclusive approach to our campus mission of teaching,
research, and service. In addition, we need to enhance the academic
core of UC San Diego through the expansion of teaching and academic
research that contributes to diversity across various fields - even in
these times of scarce resources. As we work on these challenges
together, we must seek a fair balance between diversity broadly
construed (international students, regional differences, and the like)
and diversity understood as the inclusion of women and historically
underrepresented U.S. minority populations.

Let me encourage your participation in departmental, divisional, and
campus-wide discussions on diversity and campus climate. You can become
aware of campus resources and activities through the
http://battlehate.ucsd.edu and http://diversity.ucsd.edu web sites.